independent mediator between all parties involved in archaeology, has a crucial part to play.

Phillip van Peer

See also

France; Netherlands

References

Barlet, J., J. Barthélémy, R. Brulet, P, Gilissen, and A. Ledent. 1993. L’Archéologie en région wallonne. Dossier de la Commission Royale des Monuments, Sites et Fouilles, vol. 1. Division des Monuments, Sites et Fouilles, Jambes.

Cahen, D., and P. Haesaerts. 1984. Peuples chasseurs de la Belgique préhistorique dans leur cadre naturel. Brussels: Patrimoine de l’Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique.

Cahen, D., L.H. Keeley, and F. Van Noten. 1979. “Stone Tools, Toolkits, and Human Behaviour.” Current Anthropology 20: 661–683.

De Laet, S.J. 1957. Archaeology and Its Problems. London: Phoenix House.

———. 1982. La Belgique d’avant les Romains. Wetteren: Universa.

De Puydt, M., and M. Lohest. 1887. “L’homme contemporain du mammouth à spy (Namur).” Annales de la Fédération archéologique et historique de Belgique 2: 207–235.

Dupont, E. 1874. “Théorie des ages de la Pierre en Belgique.” Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie de Bruxelles, 2d series, 9: 728–761.

Fraipont, J., and A. de Loë. 1908. “Les sciences anthropologiques et archéologiques.” In Le mouvement scientifique en Belgique 1830–1905, 2:141–183. Ed. C. Van Overbergh. Brussels: Société Belge de Librairie.

Haesaerts, P., and J. de Heinzelin. 1979. “Le site paléolithique de Maisières-Canal.” Dissertationes archaeologicae Gandenses, vol. 19.

Mariën, M.E. 1951. “Coup d’oeuil sur l’étude de l’Age du Bronze en Belgique.” Handelingen van de Koninklijke Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde van Gent 5: 215–224.

Mertens, J.R. 1985. “L’archéologie gallo-romaine en Belgique: Quelques réflexions.” Les etudes classiques 53: 25–31.

Otte, M. 1983. “Esquisse du Paléolithique belge.” L’Anthropologie 87: 291–332.

Rutot, A. 1918. La Préhistoire, Première partie: Introduction à l’étude de la préhistoire de la Belgique. Brussels: Les Naturalistes Belges.

Sacassyn-della Santa, E. 1946. La Belgique préhistorique. Collection nationale, 6th series, vol. 69. Brussels: Office de Publicité.

Schmerling, P.C. 1834. Recherches sur les ossements fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de la province de Liège. 3 vols. Liège: Collardin.

Wankenne, A. 1979. La Belgique au temps de Rome. Namur: Presses Universitaires de Namur.

Belize

Belize, until 1973 the Crown Colony of British Honduras, is the only part of the Americas within the British Empire in which an ancient civilization flourished. Located on the eastern side of the Yucatán Peninsula bordering mexico and guatemala, it occupies part of the area in which the preclassic, classic, and postclassic Maya culture thrived from the first millennium b.c. until the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century a.d., a span of over 2,500 years. The presence of Maya ruins, the absence of other archaeological remains, and the British colonial history of Belize, which set it apart politically and culturally from its hispanophone neighbors, all governed a distinctive progress of archaeological investigation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The history of Maya archaeology generally can be divided into five successive periods (Hammond 1983b). During the first two of these—the era of the Spanish travelers (1524– 1759) and the era of the Spanish explorers (1759– 1840)—Belize remained little settled and archaeologically unnoted. Two Americans, john lloyd stephens and frederick catherwood, passed through Belize in October 1839 on their first expedition to visit maya sites in Central America and Yucatán, but their visit did not encourage archaeological interest in this small nation. Nor was interest sparked when Patrick Walker, the colony’s secretary, led an expedition from Belize hoping to forestall Stephens at the ruins of palenque on the far side of the Maya lowlands.

During the succeeding period of the major scholars (1840–1924), little attention was paid to archaeology in Belize until the end of the nineteenth century, although Belize City was the port of entry for traffic into the Peten, Guatemala’s northern rain forest department where many of the most noted Maya cities stand. Even the publication in London of Alfred Maudslay’s great Biologia Centrali-Americana: Archaeology (1889– 1902), which showed in detail how impressive the sites of tikal, Palenque, Quirigua, Copan, and chichén itzá were, apparently had no impact on British Honduras, although the sites of Lubaantun and Xunantunich were known and reported in the local press toward the end of the century.